Entries are open for the 2019 international Travel Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY). Founded in 2003, the competition attracts submissions from amateur, semi-professional and professional photographers from more than 140 countries each year, all drawn to take the TPOTY challenge by the fantastic prizes and the international kudos and exposure that comes from doing well in the awards.

Travel Photographer of the Year 2019 has a wide range of category themes and awards, reflecting the great diversity of travel photography. There is a special award for young photographers and even a category solely for images shot on a smartphone or tablet. New for 2019 is the TAPSA Travel Documentaries award for documentary photography with a travel-related theme.

The awards are judged by an international panel of imaging experts. New faces on the panel this year include double Pulitzer Prize-winner Essdras M Suarez and Lawrence Jackson, a former official White House photographer under the Obama Administration. Winning images will be showcased in global media coverage and in the Travel Photographer of the Year exhibitions; in 2018 alone TPOTY exhibitions were seen by some two million people.

The Travel Photographer of the Year 2019 will be the entrant who submits the best eight images across the four portfolio categories ‘The Art of Travel’, ‘Endangered Planet’, ‘People & Cultures’and ‘Thrills & Adventures’.

Images can be submitted online at www.tpoty.com or as prints. Entry fees start at £8 and submissions to Young TPOTY are free of charge. Entries close on October 1st and the results will be announced in December.